Feature Article For Class Discussion: Week Five

"Man of Extremes" by Dana Goodyear

I had a hard time finding a profile that I was happy with for this week, most of the ones that I found were either really short or at least 10 pages long. I eventually found this article on James Cameron, who is best known for directing movies such as Titanic and Avatar. It was written during the filming and production of Avatar and was published on October 26, 2009. I chose this article because I liked the way Goodyear paints such a detailed picture of Cameron from the very first paragraph. While beginning with a focus on Cameron's temperament and more recent work, Goodyear goes on to intersperse anecdotes from Cameron's lifetime/movie-making career throughout the piece, and these further the reader's perception of Cameron's work ethic, dedication, and stubbornness. I was interested to read this article because I have seen some of Cameron's films and was curious about the man behind them, especially someone that could make the range of movies that he has. Also, I have heard about Cameron's previous marriage to Kathryn Bigelow, the director of Hurt Locker, and how their films competed against each other for the title of Best Picture at this year's Oscars, so I was interested to see if Goodyear addressed the relationship at all. I discovered that there were several paragraphs devoted to Cameron's marriages (he's currently on his fifth) as a way of further explaining his mentality and interactions with others, and this gave me a clearer picture of Cameron. Goodyear spoke with Cameron several times in researching this article, and also had a variety of anecdotes from those close to Cameron, so I felt like the piece did a great job of illustrating who Cameron is on several levels.

Revised Personal Essay

In 4^th grade, I played in my first game of basketball. Our team was so bad it was comical, most of us having only recently begun to learn anything about the game. This comedy was compounded by the fact that every parent in attendance were cheering for our every move as if we had just won the Super Bowl, and I highly doubt that most of the girls even remember the game at all. In fact, most everyone’s biggest concern was the uniforms we wore—borrowed from our school’s middle school girls’ team, and therefore much too large on most of us—several girls spent the whole game rolling and unrolling their shorts so that they would look just right in case the ball ever happened to actually get passed to them. I was determined to win the game, to show everyone that I could be a star, but my uncoordinated efforts fell far short. The final score was lopsidedly in favor of the other team, but no one other than me seemed to care much. I pouted afterwards, mad that the game hadn’t followed the vision in my head,

However, in spite of my inauspicious beginnings, that game was the start of my athletic “career”. I settled into a rhythm of continuous schoolwork and sports, each offering multiple opportunities for my stubbornness and perfectionism to show through. Living in a small town on a tiny island--Lopez Island School District had a population of around 250 students K-12—there wasn’t a huge amount of competition in whatever goals you chose to pursue, whether they were in school, sports, art, or music. From grades 6-12, each year had four seasons in my eyes: volleyball season, basketball season, the end of the school year, and summer.

Fiercely competitive and stubborn, and growing up with parents who pushed me harder and harder to reach expectations that sometimes seemed unattainable, I grew into a perfectionist to the extreme. In some instances, I was literally so internally petrified of the possibility of not reaching the goals in my head that I would simply not be able to complete an assignment; in my mind, not finishing a paper at all was better than finishing it and not doing as well as I had hoped. These unrealistic expectations and twisted logic were as difficult for me to rationalize in my own mind as they were to explain to others, leaving me confused and frustrated.

This internal learning process came to a head after I graduated from high school and made the decision to move halfway across the country and come to Kalamazoo College. A small community, quite similar in many ways to my hometown, Kalamazoo seemed to me to be the perfect place to continue my education, both personally and scholastically. Another benefit of the small student body was that I had the opportunity to play on the junior varsity basketball team, allowing me to continue my relationship with organized athletics. Everything about the school seemed perfect for me, and I thought that I would easily be able to adapt to moving halfway across the country for college.

However, while size of the Kalamazoo College community was small, the amount of talent and competition throughout the school was much more than I had experienced in my experience attending a small town high school. Back home, I had been one of few students who dealt with perfectionism, with many only doing what they had to do to get by, Kalamazoo was entirely populated with people like myself.

While I had expected this transition, it was even more difficult than I could have imagined. Attending a liberal arts institution, and taking classes on subjects that I was often unfamiliar with, I began to feel as if I was surrounded by people who were all smarter than me, and were all having an easier time with this new college experience. While my experience on the JV basketball team was fun, and I still loved the sport, I found myself often sitting in the bench in favor of more experienced players. With my performance seeming to decline, and my confidence faltering, this cycle served to push my perfectionism over the edge, forcing me to come to terms with what I was doing to myself

This revelation made me rethink my entire mindset relating to school, sports, and relationships, and take a closer look at those around me. I had become so frenzied and self-critical that everyone around me seemed to be handling everything perfectly, but a closer look showed me that most everyone had the same problems that I did. Although I still felt out of place at times, this realization showed me that I was just as capable of success in college as everyone else around me was.

Today, in my last quarter at Kalamazoo College, I can look back at my younger self and see how ridiculous my mindset became. When I focused too deeply on my own situation, this left me unable to accept help from those around me. While I definitely do not consider myself cured of the perfectionism and procrastination that has plagued me throughout my life, I believe that Kalamazoo has helped me begin to break the cycle. Rather than simply feeling unaccomplished or inexperienced in comparison to those around me, I have learned to take what I admire in others and attempt to implement those same things in my own life. As much as college has taught me about the world, it has taught me even more about myself.

Profile Pitch

For my profile, I am hoping to write about Woodward Elementary School. Woodward School for Technology and Research is K-5 elementary school a few blocks away from the Kalamazoo College campus, and many K students have worked at Woodward as tutors. I tutored first and fourth grade students there during my freshman and sophomore year, and even though I have been unable to work there more recently because of study abroad and scheduling, I still have a big interest in the school.

I have contacted Principal Beth Yankee by phone, but she was out of the office when I called (which, as I learned from my time volunteering in the main office, she is often, because she spends much of her day moving throughout the school) but I plan to call back as soon as possible, and I also recently found her email address so I am emailing her as well.

I hope to spend some of my free time in the next few weeks at Woodward, interacting with the faculty, staff, and students as much as I am able. Depending on what access I end up having and what experiences I have, I will be able to decide which direction I want to go with the profile.

I believe that I am well suited to write this piece because of my previous experiences tutoring at Woodward. The experience was very important to me, as I love working with children and I also am very interested in developmental psychology, and it even made me consider whether I would like to become a teacher. I hope that I can interact with some of the faculty, staff, and children that I have previously worked with, and that will help me get a deeper look into what the school is all about.

Response to "Writing for Story"

While I was somewhat apprehensive about "Writing for Story" because of some of the things I had heard about it, I ended up really appreciating it, especially the chapter on outlining that Marin recommended that we read the most carefully. While his tone and/or phrasing sometimes bugged me, I really felt like he did a good job of discussing the process many people go through when beginning to write, and his description of "spaghettiing" was almost exactly what I usually go through when writing. It was really interesting to me because a lot of the stuff he said seemed like common sense once I read it, but it was all stuff that would be hard to realize when you were inside the process of writing. For example, his complication-->development-->resolution form of outlining seems like a great way of making sure that your writing will make sense and your thesis will remain clear throughout. This process of outlining sounds really helpful, and hopefully it will help me work with the structure of my personal essay and make it more coherent and cohesive.

Response to Marina's Piece "Host Mom & 'Lourde' Luggage"

I really liked the way you structured this piece. The chronological order did a good job of gradually building up to your big confrontation, and then the final paragraph tied it all together and showed how you'd grown from the experience. Your voice really came through for me, especially at the end, and I liked how each scene had a good balance of imagery, dialog and reflection. The dialog was very helpful in explaining how your host mom acted towards you and showing how ridiculous she was. I loved all the imagery in the piece, you did a great job painting a picture of your host mom, her apartment, the dog, etc. Reading it, I could just picture your face standing there at the bus stop as Erin and I drove away with our crazy mere haha. The only suggestions I came up with while I was reading your piece was possibly adding some more examples of your interactions with other French people and how they reacted to you and how that differed from how your host mom did. I know that you referred to the vendors, and that you said you already had trouble keeping the piece short enough, but just a little bit of that might make the contrast between her and everyone else you interacted with a little clearer for people who weren't there to witness some of the stuff first hand like I was.

Response to Anna's Piece "Eva"

I really liked the way you framed and structured this piece, it gradually drew me in and showed me why this role was so important to you. Your process of transformation and adapting as you became the character was really interesting, and the details you included about your emotional and physical reactions in each scene did a great job showing the reader how seriously you took this entire process. You describe everything in good detail, but you also don't spend too much time on any one description or event, which makes the piece flow well. The scene where you met Eva and the scene of the final night of the show both had such great imagery that I had a clear mental picture of the scene, and that really helped me engage with the piece. The only suggestion that I would offer after reading your piece would be to see if you could add a bit more on the process you went through in between getting the part and the final performance, mostly the mental process you went though.

Response to Joel's Piece "Catching the 6:45"

I loved this piece because of how much I identified with it and how much it reminded me of the crazy things we all went through traveling abroad. I liked how you set up the story by giving some background and explaining your emotions at the time. The structure worked well for me, especially because of the way you devoted time to both your planning (which was more explanatory and slower) and your realization and the ensuing rush (much faster and frenzied, making the reader directly feel your emotions at the time.) My main suggestion would be to see if you could add more imagery throughout the piece; personally, some of the things that stand out to me from my time traveling in Europe are certain mental snapshots of certain occasions, and I think that more description of the imagery would make it even easier for the reader to relive the experience along with you.

Response to Claire's Piece "The Weight of One Strand of Hair"

I really liked how you started this piece off with a recent anecdote that connected in to the story you wanted to tell. This was a great way to get people to connect with your process, I'm sure most of us have gone through that same type of thought process, making a string of connections from a class discussion to various other personal experiences. The anecdote from France was a nice tie in to the rest of your piece, and I personally identified with it because of having similar experiences in France myself. I also spent a good amount of time abroad thinking about home and why I thought about certain things the way I did, and I liked how you described this internal process/conflicts that you went through. The way you funneled towards your main topic worked really well for me, and the main themes of confusion, indecision, and rethinking previous ideas and assumptions were something that anyone could identify with.

Writing Process for Person Essay Draft

Writing this draft was a lot harder than I'd anticipated it to be. I struggled thinking of a topic that would be interesting enough to write/read that much about, and then once I started writing, I struggled to come up with something that I was at all happy with. Ideas that seemed interesting or witty in my head didn't pan out the way I'd hoped they would, and I ended up going in circles for a bit. Eventually, I came up with a framework that I thought might be interesting...but then as I was writing the final paragraph this afternoon, I came up with a completely different idea. Since I was already almost done writing this draft, I decided to post it as my draft for the workshop, but I plan on going back over what I have and hopefully adapting it to fit my new idea so that I end up with a more interesting final essay.

Personal Essay Draft

Reaching deep down into my lungs for a few more breaths, I leaned down to touch the end line and made the turn for home. Red faced and gasping for breath, I crossed the final end line and came to a grateful stop; leaning against the wall for a brief moment before pacing the sideline with my hands over my head, trying hard to appear nonchalant and slightly less winded than I felt. I had been at school since my zero-hour French class at 7am and it was now nearing 7pm, all I wanted to do was go home and collapse, but instead there were more suicides to run. We all stepped back to the line and waited for the whistle, poised to run yet again, another opportunity to prove ourselves…it was the first basketball practice of my senior season.
I played my first game of organized basketball in 4th grade, and our team was so bad that it was comical. This comedy was only compounded by the fact that every parent in attendance were cheering for our every move as if we had just won the Super Bowl, and I highly doubt that most of the girls even remember the game at all. In fact, most everyone’s biggest concern was the uniforms we wore—borrowed from our school’s middle school girls’ team, and therefore much too large on most of us—several girls spent the whole game rolling and unrolling their shorts so that they would look just right in case the ball ever happened to actually get passed to them. The final score was lopsidedly in favor of the other team, but no one other than me seemed to care much. I pouted afterwards, mad that the game hadn’t followed the vision in my head,
However, in spite of my inauspicious beginnings, that game was the start of my athletic “career”. I settled into a rhythm of continuous schoolwork and sports, each offering multiple opportunities for my stubbornness and perfectionism to show through. Living in a small town on a tiny island--Lopez Island School District had a population of around 250 students K-12—there wasn’t a huge amount of competition in whatever goals you chose to pursue, whether they were in school, sports, art, or music. From grades 6-12, each year had four seasons in my eyes: volleyball season, basketball season, the end of the school year, and summer.
Fiercely competitive and stubborn, and growing up with parents who pushed me harder and harder to reach expectations that sometimes seemed unattainable, I grew into a perfectionist to the extreme. In some instances, I was literally so internally petrified of the possibility of not reaching the goals in my head that I would simply not be able to complete an assignment; in my mind, not finishing a paper at all was better than finishing it and not doing as well as I had hoped. These unrealistic expectations and twisted logic were as difficult for me to rationalize in my own mind as they were to explain to others, but I was lucky to have attended a small school where I was able to communicate closely with my teachers as they tried to understand what I was going through.
This internal learning process came to a head after I graduated from high school and made the decision to move halfway across the country and come to Kalamazoo College. A small community, quite similar in many ways to my hometown, Kalamazoo seemed to me to be the perfect place to continue my education, both personally and scholastically. Thrown into a world filled with hundreds of other perfectionists and procrastinators, surrounded by people who had faced many of the same problems that I had, coming to Kalamazoo eventually helped me work to solve the problems I faced, though differently than I had originally anticipated. My process of learning and change of environment, coupled with the realization that I was not alone in my seemingly crazy mindset, helped me to begin to solve the problems I had angsted over for so long. All along, I had thought that the purpose of college was meant to prepare you for some specific job or life path, but instead college has simply prepared me to live my life.